Rolls of labels are converted on high speed label presses. A master roll is loaded into the press and feed through a series of ink rollers, image rollers, dryers, die cutting rollers and slitter to a rewinder. The rewinder typically can be set to sense a number of labels on the web or footage of media it is winding, and when the target number of labels is reached the rewinder automatically cuts the web and starts the roll onto a new core. This creates a conventional roll of labels (FIG. 3) with labels from the start to the end of the liner on a roll. A typical manufacturer who uses labels, will have to remove 1 to 4 feet of labels from the roll, so that the labels can be threaded through a bar code printer or label applicator. Leaving the labels on the roll and feeding them through a machine can cause the labels to stick to components within the machines, such as rollers, guides, creating a mess that requires extra time to correct. Thus, most manufacturers have to take the time remove the labels manually and dispose of them, which can be a costly problem with conventionally rolled labels.
Some label suppliers will manually remove the labels, and charge an increased cost to the manufacturers for this service. The label supplier will use a crew of people to manually count and remove each label from the roll. For production runs of 100,000 or more labels, this becomes a substantial task.